I want to share my experience, as a patent agent in Hong Kong, for working on Intellectual Property Protection in China and the rest of the world.

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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Translation of Chinese patent applications into English

Demand for translation works has been increased in the past 12-months.

In the standard process for our clients who file their first patent application in China and followed by filing the same in US and EPO, we translate from Chinese to English for any redrafting work done by patent attorney in US or Europe. This is an obvious choice for those inventor / applicant who can approve Chinese language.

Our US clients have their patent applications first filed in US need translation from English to Chinese for further redraft before filing to China SIPO.

In the past year, we also have requests from foreign attorney to translate Chinese patent application into English for possible litigation process in US or China, and this type of demand is increasing.

One client believed that his competitor have a patent granted in China that actually copied some of the key features of his products. In order to start the legal process to invalidate the Chinese patent, the first step was to perform evaluation and a formal translation of the Chinese patent was performed by us and the client's US attorney reviewed the Chinese patent. After that we have also translated a few US patents into Chinese for the legal process in China to invalidate the competitor's China patent. The legal process in China is now in progress.

With change to PCT rule 34.1 on minimum documentation to include Chinese patent documents as prior arts becomes effective on 1 July 2012, we think that the demand for translation on patent application related to Chinese language would be increased. Our translators in Hong Kong and China would pick up more business in the near future.

A background analysis on the subject can be found in an April blog from The Patent Bric. The Chinese news posted on SIPO can be found here.